Construction hit, builders in Hyderabad blame faulty govt policies

Blaming the state government, the Telangana builders' federation said DPMS as well as the unregulated rise in the price of sand were among key reasons business had taken a beating.TNN | October 18, 2016, 13:30 IST

File photoHYDERABAD: Construction groups in the city are a concerned lot with many of their projects being of their projects being brought to a grinding halt.

Blaming the state government, the Telangana builders' federation at a media conference on Monday said an online approval system set in place by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal corporation (GHMC) as well as the unregulated rise in the price of sand were among key reasons business had taken a beating.

Finding fault with the new 'online building approval system' (DPMS), which was meant to hasten the permission process, builders said it was actually causing delays. "First, contractors who draw up building plans are not well-versed with the system. Second, one has to look for an architect who is acquainted with the soft ware to upload the building plan for approval. Hiring such an architect, does nothing more than escalate the cost of construction," said C Prabhakara Rao, president, Telangana builders' federation. According to officials from the civic body, 2,936 applications came in through the software over the past three months. Of these 1,000 pertained to residential buildings -655 were granted permission and 345 had fee intimation details issued to them. “There are 1,543 applications which are still under process, 387 had shortfalls and six were rejected,“ said a senior official of the GHMC's town planning department.

While he claimed that the civic body has been facilitating architects in preparing the drawings without any errors, architects in the city say that they are finding it tough to go ahead.

Builders also criticised the state government for its plan of rationalising sand quarrying. “This new process that the govern process that the government has come up with has only hiked the price of the sand by as much as 10 times in private quarries.One tonne of sand costs Rs 390 per tonne and owing to the heavy demand the government quarries are failing to match the demand,“ said Prabhakara Rao. He alleged, that citing the shortfall in government quarries, private quarry owners have hiked prices to a whopping Rs 3,900 per tonne. “Private vendors say that they need to pay for the driver, vehicle cost, and cleaner charges.Citing these costs they have begun charging exorbitant amounts,“ Rao said.

Currently, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is levied at 12 per cent on payments made for under-construction property or ready-to-move-in flats where completion certificate has not been issued at the time of sale.